ONE SHOULD NEVER SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD, I have always heard; and I am perfectly prepared to stick to this maxim, which means that I should, in theory, not have anything off-colour to state about the manic, histrionic, corrupt and shameless "politician" who was the leader of the sub-third world banana republic that was generously called Veneziola (in homage to its being similar to Venice) by over-optimistic Tuscan explorer Amerigo Vespucci in 1499.
HUGO RAFAEL CHÁVEZ FRÍAS is as I write being given a send-off that makes many people think of Lenin, although I personally tend to think of Stalin. I am currently being reminded that Chávez is "not dead", but that "all Venezuela is Chávez". (Which, of course, allows me to speak ill of him.)
I MUST CONFESS THAT I HAVE NOT spent a great deal of the last fourteen years trying to find out what President Hugo Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been up to; and I am prepared to listen to arguments on both sides of the divide. Occasionally I have seen bits of what he has been saying on TV, and my attention has been lost very quickly.
I HAVE READ ACCOUNTS of his raising the standard of living among the poor of the country, and ones which state that the homicide and robbery rates have never been so high in Venezuela, particularly in Caracas, as during his period of tenure. I have also read that he managed to build up a personal fortune of over 200 million dollars.
AND SO I SHOULD LEAVE IT AT THAT. Were it not for the fact that when a leader dies and has literally millions of toothless and apparently brainless supporters prepared to take a week off work in order to traipse past his rotting corpse I tend to imagine that something is rotten in the state in question.
(My picture shows Jack Parrot, from the film "Robbers of the Caribbean")
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